


Sounds and Sweet Airs

by rhombus



Category: Still Star-Crossed (TV)
Genre: Banter, Drunken Kissing, F/M, Foreplay, Romance, Trapped in A Cellar, Wedding Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-11 18:26:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11720004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhombus/pseuds/rhombus
Summary: It's Rosaline and Benvolio's wedding day, and Benvolio is determined to make sure everything goes perfectly. For what could possibly go wrong?A comedy of errors in three parts.





	Sounds and Sweet Airs

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Shakespeare's _The Tempest._

 

_Part I: The Groom_

 

Benvolio stomped out of the banquet hall. "What is this?" He brandished the offending bottle as if it were a weapon.

"It's… wine," said Mauricio, glancing up from his scroll.

Benvolio wanted to slap the papers out of his hands. "It's all wrong. Who chose this swill?" Mauricio was supposed to be organizing this whole affair and instead he was standing around reading while sub-par wine was being strewn about all over the place.

"That bottle's worth six-hundred ducats," Mauricio said.

Benvolio scoffed. "Overpriced vinegar."

"Stop fussing," Mauricio said, returning to his papers. "You're nervous, that's all."

The gall of him. Benvolio crossed his arms over his chest and tapped his foot on the stone floor. "I'm not nervous, why would I be nervous? Do I look nervous?" He panicked for a moment. "Do I look alright?"

"The staff can take care of this." Mauricio gently reached for the wine, but Benvolio pulled it back out of reach.

"No. It's all wrong. Today is supposed to be perfect and it's all wrong."

"It's just wine, my Lord."

"It's not just wine, Mauricio, and I told you to stop calling me that. I'm fixing this. Excuse me." He started down the hall.

"But you have to get ready!"

"I've never been more ready," he called back over his shoulder.

"I meant your clothes, my Lo—"

"Nay!" Benvolio strode toward the kitchens. If he was the only one who cared enough to make this day flawless, then by God he would just have to do everything himself.

After all, a man only married the love of his life once, and only then if he was truly lucky. Benvolio pictured himself kneeling with Rosaline, seeing her in her dress, a look of love upon her face, for him, only for him.

Yes, Benvolio Montague considered himself the luckiest man in the entire world.

 

He must have been the unluckiest man in the entire world.

Benvolio turned the handle again. The door remained decidedly shut. He was trapped, alone, in the wine cellar, on his _wedding day_ , and the saints must truly have been laughing at him for thinking he could make today go off without a hitch. With his terrible, inescapable, downright tragic bad luck, imagining today could be perfect? What a fool he was.

He tried the handle again.

"Gah!"

He pounded on the door. It wouldn't budge. He kicked it. Nothing. Except a sore foot.

"Mauricio! Mauricio get down here!"

He waited a few moments to hear the blessed sound of boots clomping down the stairs to save him, but was met only with silence. Terrible, hope-devouring silence.

" _Someone! Anyone! I'm down here!_ " He pounded on the door until his hand throbbed. "Don't panic, Benvolio. Don't panic." He paced the small room. "Don't panic and don't talk to yourself aloud. You'll think of something. Such as… such as… the hinges!"

He raced back to the door and tried to pry the hinges loose with his dagger. They were rusted over. Damn his departed uncle for having so much money and being so stingy with the housekeeping.

He circled the room again, keeping up a steady pattern of thinking, followed by shouting, then pounding at the door, and finally sitting with his head between his legs in total abject despair—before starting the whole routine all over again.

He was on his twelfth go-round when he heard the squeak of the door. It must have been able to open from the other side.  

"Oh thank God," he breathed out as none other than Rosaline entered. She wore a simple house gown, similar to her serving dress, clearly as unprepared for the wedding as he. She was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. "The latch—"

"There you are." Her fingers slipped from the door as she crossed her arms over her chest in annoyance. "Mauricio said you were in a state."

"No!" Benvolio lunged for the door. "Don't let it—!"

It fell shut behind her with a resounding thud.

"—close."

 

_Part II: The Bride_

 

"What?" Rosaline glanced behind her at the door, baffled by Benvolio's outburst. Not that he wasn't prone to dramatics, but this was a bit much. She had searched the whole house for him, and here he was, in the wine cellar, stalking around like a crazed man. If he showed up to their wedding _late_ , and _drunk_ , so help him, she thought.

"It is jammed," Benvolio said, pointing behind her. "The latch."

"Jammed," she repeated.

"Yes."

She turned and jiggled the handle. Nothing happened. "Well that's not good."

He tilted his head at her. "No, Capulet. It's not."

"So we're stuck."

"Yes."

"In here."

"Yes."

"Together."

"Yes."

"On our wedding day."

" _Yes_ ," he said, clearly exasperated.

"With nothing to sustain us except your House's entire supply of wine."

"Oh," Benvolio said, looking about as if remembering for the first time where they were. He rubbed his hands together and shrugged. "Well, 'if you should be in Rome', as they say."

"We are not drinking," Rosaline said. "We are finding a way out of here."

"What do you think I've being doing for the past hour?"

"Pacing a hole in the floor?"

He stopped mid-pace and glared at her. "Capulet, I am not in the mood for your japes today."

Rosaline couldn't hold back her laugh. Sometimes when he got angry he would puff up like a baby chick. "I'm sorry," she said, hand covering her mouth to hold back more laughter. He only puffed up more. "I'm sorry."

"If you're going to laugh, I'm going to drink." He stomped over to a shelf and started inspecting labels. Even in times of desperation his hauteur apparently could not be dampened. He finally seemed satisfied with a bottle and pulled it down. He offered it to her with a fetching look in his eye, and she wanted to say no, she truly did, but if there was one thing she'd learnt about herself this year it was that it was terribly impossible to say no to Benvolio Montague when he looked at her that way.

She sighed and took the bottle from him. He grinned.

"That's more like it." The pride in his voice made her smile back, but only for a moment before she was back to scowling at him.

"We can drink," she said, pointing an accusing finger at him. "But we are not getting _drunk_."

He held up his hands in surrender. "As you wish."

 

Three-quarters of a bottle later and Rosaline was on the floor, her back to an unopened crate, her knees up and her laughs coming far too easily.

"We are getting _married_ ," she sing-songed. "Me and _you_. Capulet and Monta- _gue_."

"If we ever get out of here," Benvolio grumbled. He was using one hand to sketch something in the dust on the floor while the other brought his bottle of wine up to his lips for another draught. Rosaline had tried to offer him a cup to use, but he'd refused.

"Don't pout," she said. "It makes you far too cute."

He looked up at her, a slow smile finally spreading across his lips. "You like it when I'm cute."

"I do not," she said, sticking her chin up.

"Uh huh. Well, not to take the high road, but I love it when _you're_ cute."

"I'm never cute," she said, just to be contradictory.

He took another pull from his bottle, then grinned at her. "As with most things, dear Capulet, you are entirely mistaken."

"Maybe so," she said with a sniff, mostly because she couldn't think of any more retorts in her partially-inebriated condition. Perhaps it was time for a pivot. "Have you tried kicking the door down?"

He stared at her over the rim of his bottle, one eyebrow raised as if to say, _'In this state?'_

"I mean, you are wearing your kicky little knee-high boots," she said, gesturing at his feet.

He snorted so loud she was afraid wine might come out his nose. "My _what?_ "

"Your kicky little—you know what? Nevermind."

"Do you like my boots, Capulet?" he said, flirting so hard she thought he might fall over from the effort of it.

"Not to take the high road," she parroted, "but I happen to like everything about you."

He smirked. "Just as soon as you stopped hating me, is that right?"

"Yes," she said, and didn't try to find any untruth in it. Possibly because there wasn't any. "And you?" she asked. "When did you stop hating me?"

"I don't know if I ever hated you, Capulet."

"Liar."

"Well, maybe a little bit," he said. "But only because you hated me first."

"I did." She took a drink from her cup. "Quite a lot."

"You wound me. You're supposed to deny it."

"Well I would never lie to you."

"Hmm." He took another sip, and so did she. "But if you're lying _now_ , then you could." _Sip_. "And would." _Sip_. "And are."

"You, sir, are drunk." She pointed at him unsteadily. "And avoiding the question."

"When did I stop hating you?" He looked up, as if the answer were etched onto the ceiling. "Probably the first time you were nice to me."

She stuck out her lower lip. "Poor Montague. Was I mean to you?"

"I just mean—at the betrothal ceremony, you were nice to me, and it was… nice."

"There's that famous wit."

He rolled his eyes. "Then you ran after Truccio like a maniac."

"Hey—"

"And it was glorious," he finished. "You were this beautiful, avenging goddess."

"Oh hush." She tried to scoff, but it came out more like a snicker.

"No, I mean it. I think…" He looked down, cheeks reddening. "I think I fell a little bit in love with you that day."

"Oh?" She had always wondered, but had never asked. Had he loved her for that long?

"And me?" he asked, interrupting her thoughts, his voice soft, almost tentative.

"You?"

"When did you…" He started running his finger in patterns over the floor again. He could sometimes look so young. "When did your feelings first change for me?"

A bit of mischief entered her heart; she couldn't help it. It was the wine, surely. "It must have been…" She tapped her finger against her lip. "Yes. When you compared me to a summer's day."

She couldn't quite hold back a laugh at his miserable groan.

"You know I didn't write that."

"You didn't?" Her hand went to her heart. "But, my Lord. If you didn't… am I betrothed to the wrong man? Where is the true owner of my heart? What have you done with him?" She looked around as if the poet would pop out from behind a cupboard.

"Pssh. Whoever wrote that drivel doesn't deserve you. 'Temperate' is not a word anyone who _really_ knew you would ever use."

"Hey!"

"Tempest, maybe. Thunderstorm? Those happen in the summer." He rubbed his chin. "'Shall I compare thee to a summer storm? Thou art more blustery and wet.'"

She lobbed her cork at him and they fell into shared laughter when it smacked him right in the forehead.

"So that was it, huh?" he asked, rubbing his forehead and looking across at her with so much love in his eyes. But if she looked closer, maybe just the tiniest bit of self-doubt, too. "My uncle's commissioned sonnet? That was the fortune-changing turning point?"

"No." A giggle escaped her, then a hiccup. The mischief was full-blown devilry now. She waited until he took another drink. "'Twas when I saw your bum!"

He choked on his wine and her laughter went all the way down her throat, shaking her whole body, sending her sideways.

He pointed a finger at her around his bottle. "I knew you looked, you little minx!"

"How dare you, sir!" Her outrage was entirely muffled by her continued giggle fit.

"How dare _you_ , milady! I have been… debauched."

"Oh, I'll debauch you, alright."

He cleared his throat. "I was counting on that, yes." His voice had deepened, and there was suddenly so much heat in his eyes, Rosaline felt momentarily overwhelmed. And that was when her hand slipped, sloshing wine all over the front of her.

" _Shite!_ "

Benvolio choked on another laugh, the heartless fiend, before looking at her apologetically, yet still so... full of fire.

"Here, my foul-mouthed wife. Let me help you."

He moved to stand, but wobbled, and seemed to think better of it, instead choosing to crawl across to her on all fours.

Rosaline sucked in a breath and held it. Drops of wine dripped down her bosom with the sudden rise of her chest. The air in the room changed. It was if a thunderstorm _had_ brewed between them, thrilling and charged.

Despite his drunken state Benvolio looked strong, wild, full of purpose and animal power as he stalked toward her.

"My Lord," she breathed as he came upon her.

"Lady," he whispered, his gaze going from her eyes, to her chest, back to her eyes, as if asking for permission.

" _Yes,_ " she said, answering his unspoken question, and his lips were so soft against her body, his tongue so warm as he drank the wine from her skin. Her fingers went to the back of his head and she held him there while he kissed and lavished the tops of her breasts, nosing down as far as her dress would allow. She threw her head back and tried to give him more room, each gasping breath pushing her chest more firmly against his mouth.

He looked up at her then with hooded, blazing eyes and it filled her with a reckless brazenness. She reached for her cup, brought it up once again, and spilled a few more drops of wine down her chest. Benvolio sucked them off her one by one, deliberate and sure, and every bit of her was on fire.

He moved over her, knees planted on either side, and kissed her mouth, tasting of rich wine. She felt him reach for the front clasps of her bodice and without thinking she began to help him. A wanton need compelled her, passion and longing and desire so strong within her heart it subsumed all her good virtue.

She hadn't felt this free, this _gloriously_ free, since riding away with him in the middle of night. To be liberated from judgment, from the constraints of society, unfettered from the cage of her family's expectations—she felt it all again as each clasp sprung open, as cool air caressed her hungering skin.

Main hindrance now gone, Benvolio nosed beneath her chemise and chased the hidden wine between the mounds of her breasts, the sensitive skin there that had never before been touched.

Once he was satisfied with the thoroughness of his job he moved his lips across, kissing and teasing the hardened peaks of her nipples through the fabric of her underdress. " _Oh_ ," Rosaline gasped, clutching at him harder, every bit of her coursing through with lightning. She _was_ the tempest, her whole body a riotous storm, and he was the earth, meeting her every movement and holding strong.

"You," she said, trying and failing to catch her breath. "Ah."

Benvolio looked up at her. His hair was in disarray. His eyes were jet-black and full of promise.

"You called me 'wife'," she said through another gasp.

"Well," Benvolio said, kissing the space between her breasts again. "The ceremony must _surely_ be over by now."

Rosaline laughed, and pulled him up, and slid her wine-warm mouth against his. "Surely," she agreed.

 

_Part III: The Squire_

 

Mauricio did one final walk through the banquet hall before the guests were due back from the church. The young Lord Montague was being such a pain in the arse earlier, Mauricio wanted to make sure everything was exactly in place so his lord wouldn't have another embarrassing paroxysm. Which, among other things, would not reflect well back on him as a faithful squire.

He gave a cursory glance to the much embattled wine, before doing a quick double-take. Confound it all, it _wasn't_ the right bottle. The young Lord Montague had specifically requested the Vintage '48, not the '84—which was indeed far less in quality to its older counterpart.

Mauricio shook his head and gathered up the bottles in his arms before heading down to the cellar. He still had enough time to fix this and keep his livelihood intact.

When he approached the cellar door from the stairs he was stopped by a faint, high pitched squealing sound. He grimaced; there must have been rats in the cellar again. Today was simply not his day.

To top it all off he could tell, when he turned the knob, that the cursed latch was sticking again. He'd need to call out the blacksmith yet again to get it fixed. The door scraped opened with a mournful sounding groan.

"Oh dear Heavens." Mauricio slapped his hand over his eyes, for it was not the door making that noise.

His lord's shoulders were framed by his lady's knees and his head emerged from a place no man should speak of under the lady's skirts.

"Mauricio!" he heard young Lord Montague squeak.

Mauricio was careful to keep the door open and his eyes firmly shut. "My Lord. My Lady." He cleared his throat, and tried not to die of embarrassment. "If I'm not mistaken, I believe everyone awaits you at the chapel."

"Yes." He could hear his lord scrambling up. "We must, uh, get ready."

The room smelled of opened wine bottles. Mauricio shook his head in exasperation. If they drank the Vintage '48 he was going to murder them both, if their jilted wedding guests didn't get to it first.

The lord and lady shuffled past him, her skirts rustling, both giggling like schoolchildren and shushing each other as if that would sober them up. As soon as they were out the door Mauricio felt it safe to open his eyes again.

He sighed. It _was_ lovely to see his oft-troubled young master happy at last, even at the expense of good taste. _And_ good wine. He could see they had opened the '48 after all.

Following them up the stairs he silently forgave them, for today was to be their special day.

Tomorrow, though? Tomorrow he was going to demand a hefty raise for all his long suffering.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
